Hide Your Love Away
by SPOTTY
Summary: The story of a newsgirl just entering the Manhattan lodging after being kicked out of Queens for being a lesbian. She finds that EVERY one will question her, including herself.
1. Note

**Author's Note.**

Hi all, I'm Loops. Well, Spotty. Well... once was Spotty, but mostly go by Loops. You get it, lol. This story is about homosexuals in the newsies lodging houses, whether obvious ones or ones in hiding. No, I don't know for a fact how any of this was really dealt with, but I thought it would be interesting.

Loops is kicked out of her lodging in Queens for being a lesbian, and her friend Shine follows her. They are sent to Manhattan, where you see different ideas on homosexuality of the times. You also find that many of them are labeled with nicknames that will make them known to others. I'm not some historian, but this is a mangled version of my own personal experience, mixed with some love for "Newsies", and just fun with writing fan fiction, so just go with that, lol.

I'm hoping to get some reviews, so get to reading, and thanks! Oh, and I realize that some people have nicknames that they'd rather not share, and I'm sorry if they're in here I really just didn't know, so just email or message me, and I'll change that right up, or bribe you for it, lol.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One.**

Shine and I weren't so attached to Queens that we ached to have it back again, but coming to Manhattan made us cringe slightly. Suddenly, we were to be put up with all these news_boys_, as if we fit in more with them than anyone else. Well, me anyway. _Shine doesn't have any of the "problems" that Loops has_ – that's what the girls said at the house in Queens – _Why is she going with Loops, anyway?_

I was lucky to have Shine as a _real_ friend, that's why.

"Ay, you girls the one's from Queens?" We nodded, and Jack Kelly introduced himself, and then looked at each of us. "So, uh, who's who? Which is Kid?" he wondered.

Angrily, I told him, "I'm Loops – that's Shine." I shook hands with Jack, and he nodded, taking us in. "Shine really doesn't talk hardly ever," I said.

"Ah, that's why she came here with you?"

Shine shook her head. I said for her, "She came here 'cause she's my friend, that's why." Crossing my arms, I let him know that I was well aware of what people were thinking, and that I didn't care.

Jack shook his head. "We don't let _regular_ girls stay here, as much as we want 'em here, so you..."

"Ay Jacky-boy, what's goin' on?" A girl popped her head out of a window from the lodging house in front of us. She had a really crisp lisp, a little more obvious than Jack's. As Jack flipped around, she opened her eyes wide and threw her hands out in confusion, a little over-dramatic.

"Spats, come down here!" Jack screeched.

The girl growled, "I ain't Spats! I tell you, call me Cinch!"

Looking at Shine, she was squinting up at the girl in amazement, unsure of what to think about her. "Weird," I whispered to her, and she chuckled.

Spats was quick to come down the stairs. "Call me Cinch. These stupid boys call me that 'cause of my lisp, but Jack's got one too, and nobody calls him Spitty or Spit's, nothin' like that!" This girl was seriously spitting all over the place, and it was only seconds before she would use another _s_ in there, it seemed. She also didn't sound very intelligent.

"Spats is here the same reason as you, so hey, maybe you can have somethin' in common." Jack had ignored her request to call her Cinch, so I decided to not call her by anything.

I shook her hand and nodded. "Sure."

We were taken upstairs and introduced to all of the other newsies - all the rest were boys. Jack called out, "This is Loops and Shine!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him casually point at me, letting them know who the _un_-regular one was.

Spats smiled at everyone, clearly the gesture of an idiot in the way that she did it. "So who's gonna sleep where's, huh?" she wondered.

Racetrack wiped his sleeve, looking up at Spats, who was sitting on the bed above him. "Ay! Stop _spattin'_ all over the place, _Spats_!" he groaned.

"I ain't spattin' over nothin'! Talk to Jacky, he's talkin' more then I is!" she retorted, adding a "humph".

Jack shook his head. He looked around. "Uh, we got 2 beds by the window."

A few boys sniggered. Jack was giving us the 2 worst beds, not realizing that we knew what to fear upon sleeping there. Spats piped in, "If you hear any shots, then you yell at us and jump on the floor!"

"We know the drill." I rolled my eyes at Shine, who was grimacing. I really appreciated her following me here to Manhattan, instead of staying in Queens with our old friends. We used to do the same thing with new members. Put them all near the windows, so they would be kept up _all_ night, while we all slept just fine.

"Gotta worry 'bout birds too!" Kid Blink inserted. "They hit the window, an' I think it's on purpose."

"Oh, this is gonna be a joy," I mumbled.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two.**

We settled in by the window, though not really. We hadn't brought anything with us, only because we really didn't have anything to begin with. Shine was in Queens since _birth_ - I was in Queens since I was about 14. Now we were both 19, and as different as we were, we had a connection, and I would always appreciate everything she did for me.

When I joined the Queens Lodging House, the leader was Yellow. She still was the leader, but her rules had changed. One day, a boy came to our lodging, and he informed us that he had been sent from a lodging house in Buffalo. Yellow nodded, and didn't explain why we were letting a boy into the house. We all later figured out that he wasn't _interested_ in any of us girls.

The newsboy simply went by Kid, but some of the girls called him Goil Girl. No one seriously hated him, but some of the girls picked on him more than anything. He rarely spoke, and one day he was found in Lake Eerie, a little ways from his lodging in Buffalo. Only a few of the newsgirl in Queens laughed about it and said maybe he deserved it, but the others took it seriously and felt awful.

A year or 2 later, we got another boy, who was _also_ nicknamed Kid by his lodging house in NYC. This boy was taken into our house a little bit better than the last boy. The girls even got to the point where they would look at other boys for_ him_! Of course, things don't always last, and just another year later, we received yet another boy, also nicknamed Kid. It was starting to make sense to us, that all of the homosexual boys were given the name Kid, and sent off to the girls lodging houses. That way, those who figured it out knew that the _Kid_ was also a homo.

Eventually, our house had _six_ boys with the nickname Kid, so of course we let them change their names. It got so confusing that whenever the new boy came, he would be ordered to change his nickname first. The leader's of the houses that these boys were kicked out of got together and debated what was to be done. They didn't want to bump into a _Kid_ who had changed his nickname. How would they know? Oh, it was a mess.

To them.

Eventually, I was found out by my leader, and Yellow wondered what was to be done with my nickname. I begged her to let me stay, and I promised not to tell anyone that I was a lesbian. Well, Jack spoke with her and agreed to take me in. Yellow told him that my nickname was Kid. Simply and promptly, I was thrown out of Queens, and given scribbled notes on how to walk to Manhattan.

Shine followed me. I had only heard her speak a few times, and the last thing that she said was when she caught up to me - she said, "I don't care."

I nodded, still in a state of shock, unsure of myself and my future. And here we are in Manhattan, like we were _the new kids_.

It made me sick inside, thinking about who I was, and who I couldn't stop being.


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three.**

I love that I'm getting reviews, weeeee. I just wish I got more! But many thanks to you fabulous reviewing ladies. And with that, I knocked off the insane accents in the last 2 chapters, and shall continue with that, lol. There's a scene with Jack and Race – you'll know it – and I just love it, lol. I enjoy writing this even more than I thought, so with that said, here you go...

- - - - - -

Shine immediately fell asleep when she hit the bed. I could always tell when she was asleep – that's how well we knew each other. In my bed though, I just couldn't stop hearing things. When you sleep by the windows, you hear _everything_ that is going on in New York. Now, people _do_ sleep, but not as much as a newsgirl would want, especially when you have to get up so early.

Also on my mind was how I was going to be treated the next day. There wasn't a lot of time to get any idea of how these boys would treat me, or Shine. Jack told us that we would have to get up really early and use the bathroom first, or wait for everyone to leave, and then use it. Shine and I decided we would do whatever we were awake for first.

Spats rambled on and on about how she was friends with this newsie and that newsie, but no one treated her as a friend. This made me wonder how I would be treated soon after my welcome wore off.

Jack said that if we got up early before everyone else, we'd still be dealing with one of the newsboys – Lack. He was nicknamed for his "lack" of sleep. When we all went to bed, he went to the stairs and sat there, just waiting for something to happen. I wondered what he thought about.

I sighed.

- - - - - -

That night was _my_ lacking of sleep, and I used the bathroom and got ready before anyone else, including Lack, who probably figured it was me in there anyway, and avoided the bathroom for the obvious. There wasn't much to getting ready. I slept in my slip, so all I needed to do was throw my dress over it. Then I messed with my hair a little, trying to get it to sit on top of my head without flailing all over. My hair is dark black, but the sun started lightening it up this summer, and it's fairly short, though not short enough to put up. I had Yellow cut it just a week before she threw me out. As I stared into the mirror, I remembered that evening.

"_Loops, you look even prettier with short hair. It fits you just perfect."_

_I smiled at Yellow. "You think so?"_

_She nodded, and then cocked her head to the side as she watched me in the mirror in front of us. We had set up a little beauty parlor in an extra room we had for us girls, and Yellow loved it; she loved the idea that we could feel good about ourselves, even if for just a short time, and just in front of the large mirror we had all pitched in to get, and all the little make-up sets strewn along the old table we brought to put in front of the mirror. I was sitting in a chair we had brought in from the lobby of the house downstairs._

_Yellow looked at me a lot, but that time it felt different._

"Shine, up so early?" I snapped out of my memories, and Shine was behind me in the mirror, nodding in response. "It's awful early, ain't it?" Again, she nodded, and then confirmed the time with a yawn.

Another yawn over-powered Shine's, and we both looked to see that Kid Blink was awake, and scratching his stomach as he craned his neck and stretched. His eyes were half-open and his lip was curled up, like he smelled something awful. "Ugh, uh, oh, sorry..." Though I'm sure he couldn't see us very well, he stepped back out of the bathroom, as if he had walked in on us naked.

I stepped to Shine and put my arm around with a laugh. "As much as I hate it here, that boy's reaction just made my day." Glancing at Shine, I noticed that she had cracked a smile and that her eyes were almost glowing when I said it. I gasped, "You got a crush on that boy?"

Shine pursed her lips, and then pointed to her eye, closing it. "Kid Blink, yeah, I know his name," I chuckled. She continued to the sink to wash her face, not informing me of anything with any sort of body language.

"Okay," I told her, "I'll set it up where you guys can hang out and smooch, how's that sound?" Her face shot up and she dripped her way over to me, shaking her head feverishly in disagreement. "Continue," I said, motioning for her to go back to the sink.

Walking of the bathroom, I bumped into Racetrack, who could care less whether we were using the room or not. He quickly asked, "You ladies done gossipin'?" and didn't wait for a response as he went to a urinal.

Jack followed in behind, not even asking Shine if she was decent or not, and went to the urinal beside Race. "I had this really weird dream," he informed Race, "and I was – now get this - a _nun_. N-u-n, nun... with that thing on my head an' all that black, an' everything."

"Hey Cowboy, I don't think newsies can be nuns, since we ain't goin' to church regular-like, know what I mean?" Race inquired.

I piped in, leaning against the wall next to Race, clear of any urinal, "Don't think you can be nuns, figuring that you're boys and all."

I had hoped that I would scare them out of the bathroom area, letting them know that I was standing there with them as they continued to piss, but they didn't even flinch.

"Yeah, I think she's right," Race said with a nod, as he situated himself and left the urinal.

Jack shrugged. "I didn't say I wanted to be one, I just had a _dream_ about bein' one, that's all. Jesus! Race, you're so literal." He left the urinal as well, and I rolled my eyes, feeling left out somehow.

Inside I felt like I could try hard to be like "one of the guy's", but that it would never be, because we were two totally different kinds of beings in almost every sense. Men have absolutely no feelings – this I was sure of. And my attraction toward them had long ago died away with my hope of finding the so-called "knight in shining armor". Now all I wanted was a girl who understood me. She didn't have to have a horse, or wear armor, and fight dragons and such. So why is it that I feel so bad for wanting something that I can't help but think about?

- - - - - -

The last few lines are actually something I got from an old diary I have. So many times I dreamed of a "knight in shining armor", as cliché as it really is. Then one day, I realized that I didn't want that, nor did I want the sort of person I had hoped was underneath the armor. Just giving myself the time to figure out whether I was gay or not was the best thing ever, because it allowed me to really find me! So anyway, thought I'd share that.

Having said that, I always admit that newsboys are my only weakness... lol. R&R, if you please!


	5. Chapter Four

Come on with the reviewing, ladies! Am I unloved? I've been listening to a lot of Rufus Wainwright and Taproot, as strange a combination that may be, lol. So here's what's coming of this!

- - - - - -

**Chapter Four.**

Shine and I had gone back to our beds, and we sat on them in silence, twiddling our thumbs aimlessly. Kid Blink sat beside Shine, smiling. "Hi." He nudged her slightly, and she got up and sat next to me. Blink wondered, "What'd I do?"

I said, "Hey, I think ya scared her." Then I laughed, and leaned over to pat him on his shoulder. I hopped off the bed, and held Shine down. "Sit here, I'll be right back." She seemed uncomfortable, but sat still.

Smiling to myself, I walked to Cinch and pretended to have a conversation with her, while really just trying to eavesdrop on Shine and Blink. "Hi Spa—Hi... How are you?" I asked, catching myself before calling her anything. I looked back and saw that Blink scooted on the bed that he was on, trying to get closer to Shine, who was still on my bed.

"Not much, I'm pretty bored so far as today goes," Cinch was saying, "'Course, the day hasn't started yet! We gotta be out paperin' and all that crap." She didn't sound very enthused.

I could hear Blink talking, and I motioned Cinch to stop talking as we both listened. "So like, I have a friend, and he has this girl that came in his life and he thinks that maybe he likes her. But see, he _knows_ that she don't like him, but he can't help but think about her anyway." Blink was starting to sound like my thoughts, which didn't make any sense coming from him. He let it sink in with Shine, though I doubt she understood what he was saying at all. "So I guess it's pretty obvious I'm talkin' about me and you." I could just sense that Shine was confused. "I know I just met you and we ain't really even talked... but I get this feeling with you, where I'm all... Do you know what I'm sayin'?" Shine shrugged her shoulders. "You bein' all... like, since you're... what you are, ya know..." Shine and I caught on to what he was implying at this point.

Blink had us confused, and thought that _Shine_ was the lesbian.

As I was going to intervene and save Shine from this moment between someone she really was attracted to, I was flipped around and Spats kissed me. Her lips were soft, but her breath tasted like pretzels. I pulled away, in shock. "What's that all about?" I gasped.

She shrugged. "We're both gay, it's only normal!"

I shook my head and ignored this sudden and forceful intimacy. As I walked to Blink though, it was clear that he had seen Spats kiss me as well, and now realized that he had had Shine and I backwards. "Oooh," he cooed, "I see." He got up and nodded at Shine, and then smiled at me. "Oooh," he said again, as he walked down the stairs to start his newsie day.

Shine laughed at me as I sat down. I crossed my arms and then glanced up at Spats, who was looking awkward to me now. "A violation of my bodily rights," I told Shine, who laughed out loud in response. "What are you laughing at? Blink thinks we're _both_ lesbians, so now you're in a jam." Shine begged me for help with her eyes, but I shook my head. "Shine, this is all on you. If you like Blink, it's all in your power to open your mouth!" She sunk on the bed and fell back on it.

I shook my head, deciding to give in, feeling bad now. "Okay, what am I tellin' him? – Wait, I'll tell him you're madly in love with him, and that he's gone and changed you, and you've decided to leave the lesbian life behind, all because of him!" I exclaimed. After a second, I sighed. "Right." We had our understanding.

Suddenly, my mind reverted back to what had just happened minutes ago with Spats. I had been kissed by her. And it was not pleasant for me. At all. "Shine, I got Blink, and it's up to _you_ to get that girl off my back," I told her.

She shook her head and sat back up. I nodded. She shook her head. Then I nodded, but this time toward myself. "Why am I the one who has to do everything?" She put a finger to her lips. "Right," I said. We had another understanding.

Jack walked up us. "So are you and Spats gettin' married?" he asked with a smirk.

"You have dreams about bein' a nun, Jack. I really wouldn't laugh at this point."

He crossed his arms. "Anyway, are you girl's newsies, or flirty little girls?"

Shine and I got up. "We're goin'." We walked down the stairs of the lodging house, to begin the newspaper selling day.

- - - - - -

Um, I'm not a huge fan of this chapter, so I'm going to dwell and dwell a bit until I write the next one. I hope it is okay for now. I'll take any criticism, no matter how harsh, to try and get some more readers.

Oh, and just so you guys now, I've gone through a moment just like between Spats and Loops. A few friends of mine came out to me, and then made it like I was their new girlfriend. Why does this not happen with straight people?

"_Hi Bob, yes, I'm straight." - Kissing attack! - "You must like me, because you're straight too. Yay us!"_

Okay, I'm finished with thinking, lol.

Loops


End file.
